Many beverages are preferably served in a chilled state. There are many prior art systems designed to chill such beverages to a desired temperature. One example of such systems is a glycol cooling system. In this type of system a cooled glycol circulation loop is placed in heat transfer relation with a transport line carrying the beverage or with a reservoir for the beverage. Heat is transferred from the warmer beverage to the glycol cooling loop. The warmed glycol is then cooled by circulating the glycol through a heat exchanger which is part of a separate refrigerant loop. The refrigerant loop typically uses a standard refrigerant such as Freon that is continuously recycled in the refrigerant loop. Heat is transferred within the heat exchanger from the warmed glycol to the refrigerant. Thus in these systems the cooling of the beverage is achieved by indirect cooling, but there is a requirement for use in the refrigeration loop.
Another example of a prior art system requires that the beverage be initially cooled by placing the container, such as a keg, housing the beverage within a refrigeration unit and then moving the cooled container to the area where the beverage is to be dispensed. Obviously this requires the maintenance of appropriate refrigeration systems maintained at the desired temperatures in order to bring the beverage to the desired temperature; after which the typical glycol circulating system above-referred to may be utilized at the time of dispensing of the beverage.
In many areas of the world there are no refrigeration systems available for cooling the beverages within the containers. In addition thereto there may be instances when the consumers of the beverages are in a remote area where there is no refrigeration available, but would still prefer to have the beverage chilled to the desired temperature before consuming the same.
Most beverage dispensing assemblies are not provided with a type of automatic adjustment of the pressure level within the container and the pressure level is typically manually adjusted. The pressure level is typically maintained by the utilization of a carbon dioxide system. If the pressure level within the container is not properly maintained, as the beverage is dispensed, it will become impossible to extract the beverage from the beverage container since such is accomplished through the utilization of the pressure head above the beverage in the beverage container.
Therefore, there is a need for a keg like beverage container which has the capability of automatically cooling the beverage contained therein without the necessity of external refrigeration and also which maintains a pressure head within the beverage container for automatically dispensing the beverage on a continuous basis as desired by the consumer.